persimmon theory

After church on Sunday, we had an early Thanksgiving lunch. A group of us were sitting around a table, and somehow the conversation turns to the persimmon. No one else likes the beautiful orange persimmon, so I'm the only one with a persimmon on my plate. It tastes too bland, someone says. In fact a lot of people I know don't enjoy persimmons (hard or soft); they say it has no flavor and has a strange texture.

No matter what people say, though, I love, love, LOVE this fruit. The ripe orange color, the sweetness, the cute size. When you hold a Japanese persimmon in your hand, it fits perfectly -- a deep, rich globe of sweet flavors just resting in your palms. (Is anyone else thinking of Li-Young Lee's poem?)

My friend over at the Daily-M has this persimmon theory that Asian Americans who are born outside the U.S. like persimmons and those born in the U.S. don't.

I find this off the cuff theory quite interesting. Simply put, persimmons and other tropical fruits such as dragon-fruits, soursops, longans, lychees, etc., are grown in tropical regions, and we don't get them often in the U.S. So if you grow up with bananas and oranges, then you'll find a persimmon too different. If you don't grow up eating grapes (which you don't when you're in Vietnam), then grapes on vines are quite spectacular.

However, if we give it any sort of credence at all, the persimmon theory forces us to reconsider certain things: What does it say about identity, and what does it tell us about how we define our identity? How else am I different and individual? In what ways do I identify with other Asia-born Americans? In what ways am I different from my American-born Asians?

You can rename it, too. Fish-sauce Theory. Mam Ruoc Theory. All those names are about the same thing. What would I eat or not eat, depending on where I was born and raised. Would I eat fish sauce? A lot of my Vietnamese friends (in VN) thought that I could not eat fish sauce, because they assumed that growing up in America, I would find it disgusting. The same goes with mam ruoc theory (but to the 10th degree, b/c the taste and smell is 10 times as pungent).

I like to break boundaries. Maybe just throw in a wrench here or there to spice things up. I want to up-end these theories and assumptions and say it's not so easy to create a formula. A + B does not necessarily equal C. Just because I grew up in the US doesn't mean I don't cook with fish sauce and eat spring rolls with fish sauce and douse my rice (too much!) with fish sauce.

And, maybe, I just love, love, love, persimmon. Or, I just eat too much. I have no discriminating tastes, in fact. I eat everything. (Except beans.)